Kindle not a dictionary, liable to customs duty: Delhi HC

NEW DELHI: Amazon’s Kindle is a reading device and not a dictionary and hence liable to customs duty, Delhi High Court has ruled. It has set aside an order of the Authority of Advance Ruling which had held that Kindle was eligible for exemption.

“Dictionary in a Kindle device enables the reader to make use of the dictionary while reading the e-book. E-book reader as such is not a dictionary or translator device,” the court observed.

Kindle device is an electronic device designed for use as an electronic book reader. It has several e-books pre-installed in the device and other e-books can be downloaded.


“The product is developed and designed to function as an e-book reader and is sold and bought as a e-book reader and not as a translator or as a dictionary.

The e-book reader has an inbuilt dictionary feature, which is a secondary or additional feature, useful for the reader. This secondary or additional feature would not make it and qualify the e-reading machine as an "electrical machine with translation or dictionary function".

The word ’with‘ can have diverse and varied meaning depending upon the context in which it is used,” it observed.

Tax experts say that this judgement would mean that companies will need to take care in applying exemption notification. “In order to avail the benefit of an exemption notification, it is essential to consider the terms used strictly and in their entirety and the usage of specific words should be viewed at a product level,” said M S Mani, partner, Deloitte India.